The trust factor, p.33
The Trust Factor, page 33
Squeezing her hand, I reached up to cup her face with my other. I stroked her cheek with my thumb, swiping away tears before they could roll any further. She was crying now, and I wasn’t sure how many more heartstrings I had left for her to pull. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I hugged her, holding her against my chest. I closed my eyes, breathing in her scent and the traces of my cologne that lingered in her shirt.
A year ago, I had a plan—an agenda of events that would inch me closer to what I thought would make me happy. Like the list a child left out for Santa Claus or the wish you made before throwing a quarter in a fountain. They were desires you tossed out into the universe, hoping for whatever magic was left in the world to pick it up. We put the weight of the want on something else so we could go about our lives, not knowing that change and misdirection could disguise as pathways leading us to where we were meant to go.
If the past few years had taught me anything, it was that we didn’t control time the way we thought we did. Time was many things; it sped up, slowed down, dragged on, and could fly by if you ignored it. Time was a precious thing, and I wasn’t going to waste another second of it.
Lyla ran her hands down my chest as she pulled away. “I’m sorry I let you leave,” she whispered. “I know we haven’t talked about what happens after we graduate, and I don’t know if I’ve already fucked this up—”
“Sweetheart, can I just have a second?”
She opened her mouth to speak and giggled when I challenged her next move.
“I’m going to say something to you, and I don’t want you to run from me,” I started, repeating the line from a few weeks ago. It got her attention, and when her green eyes met mine, there was no going back.
I smiled and shook my head. “I wish you could catch a sliver of what I see when I look at you. Before you read me all your rules on campus, I was operating in survival mode. You brought back parts of me I thought were lost when Dominic passed away and when Cassie broke up with me . . . it’s a place I don’t want to go back to. I know there will be times when things get hard, but I have a lot of shit to work through too, baby,”—I grinned—“and you’re still here.”
Lyla chuckled softly and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. I thought my heart was going to fumble into my lap. It had been too long since I had her in front of me.
“I’ve meant every word I’ve ever said to you. You’re my best friend, and you’ll never be too much for me. If you think going through something means you’ve fucked this up,” I said through a breathy laugh. “There’s nothing you could do to fuck this up, because I’m in love with you, Lyla.”
Her shoulders relaxed, and I listened for the shaky exhale she made when she was nervous. “We don’t lie, remember?” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.
“We don’t lie,” I echoed.
“You love me,” she stated, shaking her head in disbelief as tears welled in the corners of her eyes.
“Yeah, baby, I do.” My voice was raspy, and seeing her so against someone caring about her broke my heart. “I’m sorry if that scares you, but I’ll love you every day if you let me.” A nervous laugh slipped through my admission. “I promise you with everything I have that I’m not going to be predictable and disappointing. I want you just the way you are with nothing in return.”
Lyla nodded, taking a deep breath to regain her composure.
I recognized the tiny smile that crept into the corners of her mouth. “Can I kiss you?”
As soon as her lips touched mine, everything fell into place. I had experienced loss and heartbreak. I was damaged in ways I had no idea how to fix. There were days when grief snuck in and decided to stay, threatening to pull me from all of the progress I’d made in trying to move forward. With everything I had been through in the last few years, it was rare when time stood still.
Lyla pulled away and met me with a pondering gaze. “I think I love you too.”
“You say the sweetest things to me, baby girl.”
“No!” she exclaimed, covering her face with her hands. “God, I’m horrible at this.” She dropped her hands in her lap and looked at me. “I know I love you because I’m about to ask you to come with me.”
A cocky ass grin formed on my face, but I couldn’t help it. “And where am I going?”
“I want you to come to Chicago with me,” she whispered like she’d scare me away if she said it any louder. “I don’t know what you’re plan is after graduation, but—”
“Lyla, you are my plan after graduation. Going with you to Chicago or wherever you wanted to go . . . it would be the first time in a long time I’m choosing to do something because I want to and not because I feel like I should.”
She stared at me for a moment until, finally, an exaggerated sigh slipped through the faint smile on her face. “Fuck.”
I leaned her back on the couch as I crawled over her, trailing kisses up her neck and keeping my body off of hers until she admitted defeat. Her hands ignited sparks along my skin as she found her way under my hoodie, gripping my hips and prompting me toward her.
“Not until you say it, baby,” I teased, my erection hard against her stomach. I planted a gentle kiss on her lips and murmured, “I can show you how much I love you right now on this couch—”
“I love you,” she said, her green eyes staring up at me. I could’ve melted onto the floor. The words left her mouth so effortlessly that they almost caught me by surprise.
We moved to her bedroom in case one of her roommates came home. She let me take my time as if five days had been five years without seeing each other. We were a song of soft moans and kisses, playing softly in the background while our bodies spoke whatever words were left.
Lyla Brooks was mine, and she loved me. I knew there would be times when the world felt heavy, but as long as I had the girl in my arms, I trusted myself to carry it.
Chapter sixty-eight
Lyla
The weather in Ohio liked to fuck with people. It was the first weekend in May, and while it was almost seventy-five degrees yesterday, it was in the low-sixties today. It wasn’t the kind of weather you wanted to wear a cute graduation dress in, even if you just graduated with your bachelor’s degree.
Since there were so many colleges within Bowling Green State University, Deacon’s graduation was in the morning, while mine took place that afternoon. When they called his name, and he walked across the stage, my chest swelled with pride. His parents clapped beside me, Georgia tearing up at the sight of her oldest son holding a diploma. Drew whooped and hollered even though the announcer asked us not to, but the charming smile that followed made it hard to reprimand his behavior.
It was bittersweet knowing that as Deacon completed a milestone he had worked so hard on, Dominic wasn’t here to see it. Even though I never got the chance to meet Dominic, I had a hunch that he was just as bold and persistent as Deacon was. Once we stepped outside, the skies cleared, and the wind picked up, making it challenging to manage the long graduation robes and tasseled hats. If Dominic were missing a photo opportunity, he’d make damn sure that his family felt him present in other ways.
My ceremony didn’t take as long as Deacon’s. He sat with my mom up in the stands, and when the announcer called my name to walk across the stage, it sounded like there was a party of ten there to support me. I shook the hand of a professor I didn’t recognize and focused on keeping one foot in front of the other. The last thing I wanted to do was leave Bowling Green with a video of me falling down the stairs. I already had one video floating around campus. I wasn’t trying for a second.
Back at my chair, I stared at the brown leather-bound diploma cover. Even though my dad wasn’t there to watch me walk, I never felt closer to him. He gave me the greatest gift he could’ve given me by not attending. I received an email that my trust was finalized this morning, and I liked to think that Aaron Brooks waved his magic wand to make it happen. I was free of him.
After we said goodbye to my mom, Deacon and I finished packing the apartment. Call me a typical rom-com girl, but after Deacon told me he loved me, I asked him to move back in for the remainder of the semester. I couldn’t help it. Michael Myers would just have to continue waiting in the background.
I placed the last box of kitchen supplies on the counter and glanced around the empty space. Charlie, Michelle, and Keira left right after graduation, and since we threw an impromptu “I Liked Living With You” party last night, there was no need to stick around for sappy farewells.
“It’s quiet without your crew,” Deacon said, taking my hand and pulling me onto his lap on the couch. “How does it feel to spend your last night in a BG apartment?”
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do without overpriced student living.”
Deacon chuckled, leaning forward to grab his laptop from the coffee table. “You still haven’t looked at the apartments I showed you, have you?”
“No, because it will ruin my optimism. We will have a perfect-sized apartment close enough to the perfect space I’ll rent for Brooks Books.”
“Brooks Books?” Deacon beamed. “Wait, are you serious?”
I downplayed my cheesy grin. “For now. We’ll see how it looks on all of the marketing materials I have in mind.”
His hand moved under my shirt as he shifted closer. I knew where this was going, and my body agreed before I could think through the next step.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I protested, pushing against his chest. “We said we’d have three options nailed down so we could make appointments to look at them next weekend. I want to make sure we have a place before you figure out your school schedule. Not to mention Lily wants to visit this summer, and my mom is all ready to come—”
“I sent you apartments,” he countered, his mouth moving to the sensitive skin behind my ear.
“I don’t know if the options you sent me are good. We haven’t looked at them.”
He chuckled, groaning in defeat at my incoming stream of questions. “Why would I send you bad apartments? Don’t you trust me?”
“I do trust you, probably more than I should, actually,” I said, repeating the phrase he used a few months ago at City Tap.
His eyes narrowed. “Clever, sweetheart.”
I kissed up his jawline, brushing my lips playfully against his. “And we don’t lie, Deacon Scott.”
The sexy smirk I loved crept into the corner of his mouth. He kissed me, and we spent the next hour saying goodbye to my Bowling Green apartment in a much more exciting way than looking at apartments. Deacon probably already had the appointments set up anyway since I knew he’d never let us go that long without a plan.
I wasn’t sure how I ended up here, but I thanked whatever stars needed to align to make it happen. I had no idea that the guy who showed up on my doorstep that morning, who agreed to be my fake boyfriend, would end up the person I was missing. There was something incredible about someone who could make you believe that love could be unconditional, but there was something irreplaceable about a best friend who made you believe in yourself.
Epilogue
Deacon
June 25th, 2019
The weather in Chicago reminded me of the weather in Bowling Green. There was always a breeze, and the winters were brutal, but the atmosphere outweighed any chill the colder months brought.
We moved the summer after graduation, and city life was busier than what Lyla and I were used to. Once Lyla walked through the two-bedroom apartment two blocks away from the space she wanted for Brooks Books, I couldn’t tell her no. It was small, affordable, and needed some renovations we could do on a medical student and new business owner’s budget. There was also enough room for whenever Jane, Lily, Drew, or anyone else in the family wanted to stay for a weekend. It was perfect.
Brooks Books was sandwiched between two other businesses that recently opened up. Darling’s was a new and trendy restaurant serving only appetizers and themed cocktails, while Green River was a print shop and apothecary whose sales skyrocketed around St. Patrick’s Day. It was a great location, and it made me smile every time I passed the curvy black letters of Lyla’s last name.
Part of me hoped Aaron Brooks would stop by one day to see it, but the man kept his distance ever since Miami. We were polite in passing, but there was a mutual understanding about the protection I felt toward Lyla. When she declined the invitation to Aaron and Tonya’s wedding, I was so fucking proud of her. Lyla wasn’t his to toy with anymore, and he finally accepted that.
Every Tuesday after work, I swung by Brooks Books with our usual mid-afternoon coffee order—a large iced coffee with vanilla and caramel and a medium iced matcha with blueberry and oat milk. The bell on the door chimed when I entered, and the cozy smell of coffee and fresh balsam greeted me. I smiled at the sight of Lyla behind her desk, working on paperwork and squinting at her open MacBook. She had her loose curls in a bun on top of her head, and I unintentionally bit my bottom lip when I saw her in thick black-framed glasses.
Just when I thought Lyla couldn’t turn me on more than she already did, the woman went and got glasses because of how much reading and screen time her job required. She didn't make it far the first time she came home in them. The second time I saw her in them, I flipped the WE’RE CLOSED sign on the shop door and had to buy her a new desk chair the next day.
“Hey, baby. Still going with the holiday scents, huh?”
Lyla looked up from her screen, smiling when she saw me. She sunk into her chair and threw her head back. “There’s nothing better than reading a good book around the holidays. It lets people escape the madness of them. Is it four-thirty already?”
“Yes.” I leaned over her computer to kiss her, and she cupped my chin so I couldn’t pull away. She always lingered a little longer when we went an entire day without seeing each other.
“You look exhausted.” She stuck out her bottom lip and stroked her thumb against my cheek. I could’ve fallen asleep standing up if she hadn’t stopped. “I picked up the balloons, and they’re in the back. Let me grab them really quick.”
Lyla ran across the store and dipped into a small room off the hallway. She emerged with a bouquet of balloons, and I chuckled at her choices. There were solid colors of gray, white, and gold, but then there were bigger balloons that looked like a basketball, a beer mug, and a red rose.
I was still laughing when she handed them to me. “I love you.”
“And I love you. I tried to pick things that were relevant to you and the occasion. Twenty-one is a big number!”
I admired the shimmering silver of the beer mug. “These are perfect.”
I walked the balloons out to the car while Lyla locked up the store and adjusted the timer for the lights. She double-checked that the script lettering was off as she crossed the parking lot, and my heart swelled with pride as I admired the image of Lyla Brooks—the love of my life—with her dream in the background.
I opened the passenger door for her and leaned against it. “How many times I gotta tell you that my last name would look good on that sign?”
Lyla scoffed playfully and rolled her eyes. “Scott Books? It doesn’t have the same ring to it. And how many times are you going to say that line and wait for me to laugh?”
“You laughed the first time,” I countered, sipping my coffee.
Lyla was still grinning when we pulled into traffic. “Well, it was so downright adorable I just had to,” she teased. “It was very clever. But I would say by the thirty-third time, it started to lose its charm.”
I placed my hand on her thigh and gave her a light squeeze. My shoulders tensed as we pulled into the parking lot for Oakwood Beach, and when Lyla offered me the Sharpie from her purse, my mouth went dry.
“Hey,” she prompted softly so I would look at her. “Do you want me to come with you, or do you want some space? What do you need from me?”
“I think you should come,” I said with a weak smile. “And then maybe I’ll keep one and take a moment to myself before I let that one go.”
The balloons batted against each other in the breeze as Lyla and I walked hand in hand on the beach. Lyla squeezed my hand, and we both looked out into the water. More weight settled into my chest, and I could feel the pressure building behind my eyes. Something about the sound of the water and the wind on my face made it all come flowing back. It really did come in waves, and once the dam broke, there was no stopping it. Grief was a raw emotion. It was the only time in my life when I couldn’t put my feelings into words. Tears fell willingly as I locked onto the nearest subject. Without warning, I was that same open wound I was the morning I got the phone call. I felt everything and nothing simultaneously, and it didn’t matter how much time passed. It never got easier.
Lyla offered me her balloons. “Do you want to do them all?”
“No, you keep your half.” I took a deep breath and looked down at her. “I think he’d like that.”
We stood for a few minutes as I focused on deep breaths and the pressure of Lyla’s hand. My shoulders relaxed, and I closed my eyes. I was here with Lyla, and I was here with Dominic. I slowly pulled my hand from Lyla’s to separate the balloons, keeping the one that looked like a rose apart from the rest.
“Happy birthday, Dominic,” I said hoarsely. “I love you.”
“Happy birthday, Dominic,” Lyla echoed as a few tears rolled down her cheeks.
We let go of the balloons and watched as they drifted away from the city. Lyla wrapped her arms around my waist and rested her head against my side. I pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. I was able to catch a few more glimmers of the beer mug before it rose past the clouds and into a place we could no longer see.
Lyla kissed my chest through my shirt and gave me one last squeeze. “Take your time.”
Once Lyla made it to the car, I secured the rose balloon around my wrist and reached into my back pocket. I pulled out the envelope addressed to Dominic and read the letter I wrote him out loud.
